This article is from the source 'washpo' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ukraine-activates-reserves-pledges-military-build-up-after-crimea-vote/2014/03/17/aa707502-adc1-11e3-96dc-d6ea14c099f9_story.html?wprss=rss_world

The article has changed 6 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Ukraine activates reserves following Sunday vote Ukraine hoping for the best but preparing for worst
(about 7 hours later)
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s government mobilized military reservists and approved an emergency military build-up a day after the disputed province of Crimea voted to secede from the country and become part of Russia. KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s government mobilized reservists and approved an emergency military build-up a day after the disputed province of Crimea voted to secede from the country and become part of Russia.
The Ukrainian parliament approved a presidential decree mobilizing some of the country’s 40,000 reservists, and also agreed to divert $600 million from other parts of the country’s budget to buy weapons, repair equipment and boost training over the next three months — a major commitment for a cash-strapped country. But with its armed forces woefully ill-trained and poorly equipped after years of underfunding, a frustrated Ukraine continued to focus on diplomacy first.
With some of his troops surrounded on Crimean bases by Russian forces, Ukrainian defense minister Ihor Tenyukh said the country would not back down even as the gears moved toward an apparent separation of Crimea from the rest of Ukraine. Following Sunday’s referendum, Crimean officials were to present a formal request in Moscow to become part of Russia, and the Russian parliament is scheduled to consider the matter this week. Political leaders here hurled harsh words at Moscow and refused to give up Crimea as lost. But even as the government in Kiev took steps to shore up national defenses, it renewed calls for a diplomatic solution. Amid concerns about possible further Russian intervention in Ukraine’s restive east and south, Kiev hoped for the best – a break in talks — while also preparing for the worst.
Tenyukh said that Ukraine’s armed forces in the east and south of the country were “combat ready,” and said there were no plans to abandon bases and installations in Crimea — despite the threatening presence of troops deployed by a vastly larger superpower neighbor. Parliament approved a presidential decree mobilizing some of the country’s 40,000 reservists, and also agreed to divert $600 million from other parts of the country’s budget to buy weapons, repair equipment and boost training over the next three months — a major commitment for a cash-strapped country.
At least some reservists will be deployed in the coming days and weeks in the newly formed national guard to protect “strategic” sites, and could be used as peacekeepers at volatile protests in eastern cities such as Kharkiv and Donetsk, where clashes between pro-Russian and pro-Kiev activists have left three dead and dozens wounded in recent days.
Yet the challenge ahead for Ukraine was clear at a military base in Novi Petrivtsi near Kiev on Monday, where hundreds of the first recruits for the new national guard marched back and forth between training exercises. The earnest men – some teenagers, others approaching 50 – are meant to beef up the defenses of a nation where only a fraction of the 130,000-strong military is considered combat-ready
In a worst-case scenario – a major military incursion by Russia into mainland Ukraine – some of the men could find themselves on the front lines. Some of the men — engineers and students, college professors and factory workers — seemed wildly out of place in uniform. They trained in the freezing rain Monday with equipment that was already old when the Berlin Wall fell.
“The only time I’ve shot a gun was on a hunting trip,” said Grigoriev Ruslan, a 19-year-old training for deployment. He said he had tried to join the military earlier but had been rejected because of severe injures he had suffered during an auto accident.
“I arrived two days ago and haven’t had time to think about being scared yet,” he said. “We don’t want war, but we are prepared to do what we need to for our country. I will fight for Ukraine.”
At the same time, a sense of bitterness gripped some political leaders, who feel that the West has done too little to force Russia back. They reference the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the United States, Britain and Russia reaffirmed their commitment to Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and in which Kiev agreed to surrender its nuclear stockpile.
A wave of regret that Ukraine had given up its most powerful potential deterrent – nuclear weapons – has reverberated through Kiev in recent days. “I can tell you that had we kept them, Russia would never have entered Crimea,” said Anatoliy Hrytsenko, the Ukrainian defense minister from 2005 to 2007.
Like many here, he argued that Russia has violated the 1994 deal and that the West has an obligation to act more boldly to protect Ukraine than it has. He called for U.S. and European warships and aircraft to be relocated to the region in an unequivocal show of force. He chided leaders in Western Europe and Washington for interpreting the deal as a general commitment for unspecified support rather than a document with the weight of a mutual defense treaty.
What the West “fails to realize is that this is not just Crimea,” he said. “Do you think Russia will stop there? And how do you think such weakness will be seen in Iran and Syria? This is a question of global credibility.”
Others expressed far more caution. Officials here have made requests for Washington to sell Ukraine the weapons and military equipment it needs to update an arsenal in woeful condition. But asked Monday whether such sales should go forward after Sunday’s referendum in Crimea, Vitali Klitschko, the Ukrainian heavyweight boxer-turned-politician-turned presidential candidate, refrained from answering directly. “That is a very sensitive question,” he said.
The suggestion is that even as Ukraine seeks more leverage against the Russians, it is also trying to avoid provoking Moscow into taking further action. Klitschko added that there is no serious thought being given to cutting water, electricity or natural gas supplies to Crimea – a region Kiev still considers part of Ukraine despite Sunday’s vote.
But to the extent it can, Ukraine is remaining defiant.
With some of his troops surrounded on Crimean bases by Russian forces, defense minister Ihor Tenyukh said the country would not back down even as the gears moved toward an apparent separation of Crimea from the rest of Ukraine. Tenyukh said there were no plans to abandon bases and installations in Crimea, despite the threatening presence of troops deployed by a vastly larger superpower neighbor.
“Crimea is, was and will be our territory,” Tenyukh said. A truce between the two sides is in place until March 21.“Crimea is, was and will be our territory,” Tenyukh said. A truce between the two sides is in place until March 21.
While the next steps may revolve around diplomacy — whether the West imposes sanctions on Russia; whether Russia moves quickly to absorb Crimea or takes more time to negotiate — the Sunday vote touched off a national call to arms in Ukraine.
While the residents of Crimea were voting Sunday under the barrel of Russian guns, Oleg Vorontsov was quick to answer it. Outraged by what he called a “rigged referendum” that will probably result in the peninsula becoming part of Russia, the 40-year-old approached a recruiting stand in central Kiev for Ukraine’s newly created national guard.
And yet, as with so many others who gathered here at the epicenter of this nation’s pro-Western revolution Sunday, his anger was not solely directed at Moscow. He had plenty left for the Western powers that he said had courted Ukraine only to dither and demur when the going got tough.
“Sanctions against a few people? How is that going to help us against Russia?” laughed Vorontsov, owner of a small Internet cafe, who signed up to join a new force of 60,000 reservists that Kiev hopes will bolster Ukrainian defenses in the event of a full-blown war with Russia. “The Russians are taking a piece of our country, and where is the West? Europe and the United States have abandoned us.”
At its core, the popular uprising that ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych last month was a battle over national direction — whether Ukraine should hitch its wagon to Moscow or the West. And yet, while many here continue to push for a new future in the West, they are also grappling with a deep sense of disappointment, even betrayal, over the response to their plight.
Even here, few see a military option. Barring a significant new Russian incursion into eastern or southern Ukraine, a major fight is considered unlikely. On Sunday, many Ukrainians watched the orchestrated referendum unfold in Crimea with a sense of helplessness, knowing full well that Moscow’s military hopelessly outclasses their own.
Yet many here also seem to think that U.S. and European leaders could do far more than they have. Western powers are set to adopt economic sanctions as soon as Monday, targeting dozens of Russians with asset freezes and travel bans. But on Sunday, many in Kiev’s Independence Square seemed convinced that such measures would be too little, too late.
Many here are citing the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the United States, Britain and Russia reaffirmed their commitment to Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and in which Kiev agreed to surrender its nuclear stockpile.
Russia has broken its part of the bargain, Kiev says, and the interim government here has sought to invoke the memorandum in appeals for Western aid. In the West, however, officials have made clear that the document is not a binding treaty of mutual defense but more of a general commitment for unspecified support.
“We do not want to go to war, but if the Russians knew that the West would stand behind us, they would not have taken Crimea,” said Oleksandr Kress, a 29-year-old engineer who was also in line to sign up for the national guard. The government is taking men as young as 15 and as old as 45. The first training sessions for the new force began last week.
“But we know now that they don’t stand behind us,” Kress said. “We know now that we must help ourselves.”
Near Independence Square, where the hundreds of activists who challenged Yanukovych are still living in a makeshift tent city, walls were adorned Sunday with posters and signs calling for peace, as well as several railing against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Accountants Irina Prischepa, 28, and Svetlana Chernykh, 34, stood in the square holding a sign that said: “Putin, hands off our Motherland.”
Both women thanked the West for its support thus far and praised the cool heads that have avoided a military clash.
“We want things to move faster, but this can only be solved diplomatically,” Prischepa said. “There is no other way.”
Yet there was no denying a general feeling here that the West has been treading too lightly with Moscow and that the Europeans in particular have erred too much on the side of protecting their lucrative economic relationships with Russia.
“The Russians are very aggressive,” said Vladimir Lebedev, a 32-year-old father of two who works for a Kiev advertising firm. On Sunday, his 4-year-old son, David, sat on his shoulders, waving a Ukrainian flag, as they listened to calls for national unity and vows of defiance on a stage set up in Independence Square.
“The only thing they understand is a strong response,” Lebedev continued. “And so far, we haven’t seen one.”